Thought Overflow... (Page 11)

Opening Tucson Government

"Citizenship isn't just the possession of rights and responsibilities; it's a state of mind." --Jess Zimbabwe, speaking at the 2010 Open Cities conference.

It's your city. Have at it.

The Open Cities movement wants citizens to be more engaged with their city government, planning and development. Open information and modern technology promises to make city services more efficient and responsive, while giving city dwellers new avenues to provide feedback and guidance to decision makers. As a grassroots movement no single organization is 'in charge', but Code for America has put together some bright folks to tackle urban issues. Andrew Greenhill, chief of staff for mayor Walkup, is on the board of Code for America and had been wanting to do some projects here in Tucson, to open up city data and make it more accessible. read more...how to fix a pothole!

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"Freedom and democracy are dreams you never give up"

Aung San Suu Kyi was interviewed on a contraband camera

Partial transcript - read below to find what Aung San is asking us to do (transcribed from the video):

[Question about her willingness to talk to a brutal and oppressive regime]

"You have to talk to people if you want ..peaceful change"

"We want to review the position of sanctions, we want to see what the political ..effect is..."

Are you saying sanctions are on the table?

"It depends what the outcome of the dialog is"

"Freedom and democracy are goals which you never give up"

even when her husband was dying of cancer, and the regime refused her a visa seeing her...she only saw her son now after ten years...

"Tt was lovely to see my son, and I was grateful to see that he was alive and well...many of my colleagues are no longer alive

[mentions Obama calling her his hero]

"I do appreciate his words, but I do have to say if I were the blushing kind I would blush at being called a hero"

What do you want from America?

"We want the people of america to be aware of what is going on

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Writing for AloNovo

I'm doing some work (a very little work) with the AloNovo project, which is basically a site to help consumers find socially responsible companies to shop with. Here's my first post on taking responsibility as an accidental shareholder in these beasts: We the Corporations

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And the moral is...

Just finished the old Jack Finney Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (had to read it because of the title, I have a theory about corporations being subject to real-life bodysnatching ;-). Good read, convincing characters, plot ok - and I love the moral : yeah its hopeless but that's exactly when you need to fight hardest against the bastards. They just might give up if you hit 'em hard enough.

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broken links at apache.org

what is the world coming to? Broken links on an Apache.org site - to the latest source tarball for the apache httpd server, no less

http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi#apache22

ah well - its Thanksgiving ( but that should only affect the US... )

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deciding

I'm wide awake now, looking down at mountains poking up out of a rippling sea of clounds, side-lit by the dawn. In a plane, not on a mountaintop, but still striking.

The problem is as always: how to spend the moments of time. Deciding on each one is maybe the most wasteful; but hooking into precanned entertainment is not something I want in me. I would like to decide for myself, mindfully, what to do with my time. Most of it is already taken: work, deadlines, paperwork, and the good part, attentioning the kids. Sweet sleep and exercise are worthy too. But - what am I building, creating, or figuring out that is of any lasting worth? Most code is useless within a few years; or worse, still has to be supported 20 years later!

Even if I'd written a transport layer used by millions (without their realizing it, of course) I don't think it would be what I really want to contribute. Writing must be it, though to communicate values or patterns it will have to be more entertaining than this!

For some reason I love reading introspective writing myself. Hunger of Memory was liberating, because it seemed to

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not taking advantage just takes longer

The problem with life is, the predators have most time to plan their next move. Non-predators have to spend more time just gathering and eating. Seems to be true of business predators as well...

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What would be enough?

I could be better at paying bills, cooking, and cleaning the house. Especially cleaning. But who wants to be the world's best dishwasher? Or Java coder? Really - I am deeply into best practices, and while coding is significantly more satisfying than washing dishes (at least you are making something, and the patterns are arguably more complex; arguably, because we still don't have software capable of driving an autonomous dish-washing robot!) it's not enough.

What would be enough?

If I could polish bTeaching, make it a dynamic and widely-used repository of teaching ideas and techniques, meanwhile exposing the relationships between ideas to the semantic web and helping certain bright but behind kids I know at my daughter's school catch up faster on math and reading...that might be enough.

At least for now.

The always frustrating, exasperating part, is that I know or feel its possible, that I could do these things. But life..responsibility..its not that, its merely a matter of realistic planning, discipline, and determination. Leaf By Niggle I love that story. Tolkien expresses all this much better than I can. But I didn't pay attention, the first time I read it, to the discipline Niggle learns

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scared

Terrified that I'll forget, or make a mistake, or that something bad will happen. How can I live free from fear if I'm afraid of myself? I don't want to make my kids this way either - responsible yes, but afraid no. Is the difference just a matter of organization and procedure?

Writing - do I have the right to write? What makes me think I can tell anyone what they might do?

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Just write?

Can it be that simple? But what about dishes, feeding the fish, deadlines, svn commits and never, never making a serious mistake? Just write?

That's not all Laraine Herring said in Writing Warrior - a book I stole 10 minutes to read in Antigone Books while my 5 year old napped on my shoulder. Also: "You cannot dissect something until it is alive", in reference to a pedagogical method of teaching aspects of writing. I love that sentence. Not sure that I want to dissect it even after it is alive, but hits some truth nonetheless. She said to breathe, shake and not be afraid to cut.

But the main take home message was the simple one: just write.

So many things I want to write.

About values, temporary and permanent, deep hunger and hunger for pizza, and why and how one can replace another. Sort of like my favorite line from Granny D (paraphrased): "Sometimes I'd look out into the desert and feel a strong desire to just walk out there and disappear. And then other times I'd want an ice cream sundae with chocolate syrup. Life is lived somewhere between these two extremes." I loved Granny D, Doris

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stray bits...

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